Music and the Problem of Knowing

Abstract

Music is a complex human art form. It involves processes and systems innate in the human organism and developed or designed from experience. Often, the nature and workings of these are taken for granted, ignored or uncritically accepted. So, the attempt here is to find out what it really means to know in general and to know music in particular. The nature of the investigation is philosophical since any critical inquiry into the nature of knowledge is fundamentally epistemological. The outcome is a big concern about different claims to knowledge. From facts to theories and from taste to aesthetics, the fallibility, probability or certainty of knowledge must be continually reviewed to avoid the adoption of bogus claims from passions, prejudices, emotions and interests as parts of the knowledge deposit.